The Song That Had Me Sobbing
WARNING: Spoilers for Disney’s Frozen ahead. Side note: if you haven’t yet seen the movie Frozen, where have you been for the last eight years?
As long as you don’t live under an off-the-grid rock, you’ve seen the movie Frozen or at least heard its most circulated song “Let it Go” (if you have heard it before, I am only slightly sorry at the fact that it is probably now stuck in your head). Something that may be slightly less well-known to the general population is that Disney adapted the movie for the Broadway stage, and I was fortunate enough to see the musical.
Although Frozen (the movie) definitely did not disappoint, I don’t really have any strong connections to my first time watching it. Sure, I cried when Anna turned to ice because everyone thought that the main character died to save her sister, but that was kind of the point with that scene, and EVERYONE cried at that. Seeing the musical, however, was an entirely different experience– especially during “Let it Go”. When that song happened in the movie, I can only remember feeling uplifted because it was such a powerful song and independent moment for Elsa, and that was the extent of its impact. In the musical, though, when Caissie Levy reached the climax at the end of the song and hit the note you hear at 3:48 in this video of her performing on The View, I instantly burst into tears. Even stranger about this fact was that the friend who was with me also started crying, and the two of us did not stop until we were at least ten minutes into intermission.
Although this song is not inherently sad or meant to make the viewer/listener cry, I had such a visceral reaction to this moment of the show. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of her voice and the power of her performance that my emotions didn’t know how to handle it. Even though I hadn’t decided at the time that I would end up pursuing Musical Theatre as my college major and hopefully one day as a career, one of the reasons I chose the path that I did was from the memory of this moment. Knowing that a performance could impact someone as much as Caissie Levy’s “Let it Go” affected me and assaulted my emotions is one of the reasons and goals I have for pursuing a career in the entertainment industry.
Work Cited
Frozen. By Jennifer Lee, Directed by Michael Grandage, 15 July 2018, St. James Theatre, New York, NY. Performance.
